Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #806: Angels, Part 1

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

In this podcast, I begin from Alpha and start talking about Angel cards and their design.

I'm not pulling out of my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Coronavirus edition. Okay guys, welcome. So today, we're talking all about angels. So I'm going to start from the very beginning and just share a lot of stories about angels along the way. Okay, so the very first angel shows up, in fact, in an alpha, which was Sarah Angel. That's the very first angel. I think Richard liked the's the very first angel. I think Richard was like the idea of a battle angel. In fact, the reason it's called Sarah Angel is the

Sarah comes from serrated, like a sword. Serrated means something that's got rough edges to it so it can cut. But anyway, I think Richard just liked the idea of this battle angel. As people know, angels become the white iconic. But as you'll see, it took a little while, actually, before just angels being a regular white thing was a normal thing. It's funny to look back. I think of angels being a thing from the magic's beginning because of Sarah Angel. But it is actually not. So I'm going to walk through that a little bit. Anyway, Sarah Angel... So when Alpha first got printed,

vigilance wasn't yet a thing. I mean, it wasn't a keyword. And for the longest time, we just called it the Sarah ability because that's what Sarah Angel did. But Sarah Angel, Out of the Gate, was a very popular card. Part of it was it was pretty strong.

One of the things about early magic is the power level of creatures was actually pretty low. The power level of spells was high, but the power level of creatures was a lot lower. In fact, there's not a lot of creatures... In fact, I don't even know if there is a creature in Alpha that for

power level reasons can't be reprinted. I mean, there's restricted lists and other reasons why it can't be, but from a power level standpoint, I'mrinted. I mean, there's restricted lists and other reasons why it can't be, but like, from a power level standpoint, I'm not sure. I mean, anyway, it was one of the more powerful creatures in Alpha. In fact, so the very

first sort of made deck called The Deck by Brian Weissman actually made use of Sarah Angel, because I think it had stasis in it, and it locked down things, but Sarah Angel had vigilance, so it didn't tap. had stasis in it, and it locked down things, um, but Serra Angel had visual, and so it didn't tap, um, and so that ended up, I don't think there, there weren't a lot of Serra Angels in that deck, one or two, um, but anyway, Serra Angel, alpha comes out, Serra Angel, instant hit, people love Serra Angel, Serra Angel was beloved from the very beginning, so interesting,

um, the next Angel does not show up for a year. So it does not show up until Legends in the summer of... So the game comes out in 1993. It's not until a year later. So the game comes out. It's a big hit. And then they start making expansions. So Rabianite's the first expansion, and Tibbers is the second

expansion. Legends is the third expansion. So it's not until the third expansion of Magic that a second angel is made. And even then, that angel, there's a, well, there's two quote-unquote angels in the set. One of which wasn't an angel at the time, and one of which was. So let's walk through those.

So, Fallen Angel, so, real quickly, Serra Angel was three white, white, four, four, flying vigilance. Vigilance was written out in alpha, but it had vigilance. Fallen Angel is three black, black, three, three flying. Sacrifice a creature

to give Fallen Angel plus two plus one until end of turn. So the second angel ever made was a black angel playing into the trope of a Fallen Angel. One of the funny things about the card is, on the art you literally can see the scar where the wings have been ripped

off the fallen angel. Yeah, and it can fly, which was a little on the confusing side point. I think the idea of angels flying was pretty important. It's why it flew. But it's interesting to point out that, like, the second angel ever is not even a white angel. Angel comes out,

two other sets go by, no angel. Finally the third set has an angel. It's not even a white angel. Angel comes out, two other sets go by, no angel. Finally, the third set has an angel. It's not even a white angel. So the idea of it being white's iconic sort of creature happens, and as you'll see, we'll get there, but it doesn't happen right away. The other quote-unquote angel in Legends was Gabriel Angel Fire. Three white, white, green, green for 4-4. During your upkeep, Gabriel gains one of the following abilities until your next upkeep. Flying, First Strike, Trample, or Rampage. Now, it has Angel in his name.

He had Wings in his art. But it was just Summon Legend, because back then, you only could have one creature type, and Legend was a creature type, not a super type. So we would later come back and say that it's an angel, but it wasn't even creature type angel at the time. I mean, it had angel in its name. Clearly, it was flavored

angel-ish. Okay, but the second white angel, so a fine trivia question, is Sarah Angel's the first white angel. What was the second white angel? And what was the gap of time between the first white angel? I mean, Gabriel Angel Fire later got eroded to be an angel.

It's part white. But I mean as far as mono-white. What is the second ever mono-white angel? And the answer is Seraph, which shows up in Ice Age. So it costs six and a white for a 4-4 flying creature. At the end of a turn in which any creature is damaged by Seraph and put into the graveyard, put that creature directly into play under your control as though it were just summoned.

If you lose control of Seraph, or if Seraph leaves play, bury the creature. So once again, this is a weird card, A, in that white doesn't really steal things, although I guess you could argue it's reanimating things, sort of. But anyway, this was a weird creature, it was expensive, but it was an angel,

it flew. But anyway, this was a weird creature. It was expensive, but it was an angel. It flew. Um, but anyway, it's interesting to note that, uh, this is where you can start seeing, um, Seraph is where we make an angel in Ice Age, and then we get to Alliances. So after Ice Age was Homelands, but after Homelands was Alliances. So Alliances had a sustaining spirit that was Summon Guardian. So it wasn't even technically, once again, an Angel creature type, although we later made it an Angel. So it's not until we get to Mirage.

But Ice Age has an Angel. Like, there's a white Angel in Ice Age. I think that came from Ser Angel was just very popular. People liked Ser Angel. So I think Ser was, okay, people like Ser Angel, let's make our own white Angel. Like I said, Sustaining

Spirit, while not an angel in Creature Type at the time, was at least in flavors. I mean, it's got wings and stuff. So then we get to Mirage, Malise Spirit. It's another angel, summoning, you know, summon angel, back when Creature Type said summon. So it was a three white white for a 3-3 flying creature

with protection from black. So the interesting thing is from very early on, you'll notice that Sarah Angel, Fawn Angel, Gabriel Angelfire, Sarah of Belief Spirit, all these fly. We established very early on that, well, what's unique

about an angel? Angels fly, right? So pretty much with a few exceptions, like Sustained Spirit actually doesn't fly. Although, once again, it wasn't even keyworded as an angel. It wasn't even creature typed as an angel at the time. So angels kind of flow. And then the other thing was we kind of got into this thing where, barring Gabriel Angel Fire, that were angels just started being female. I think Richard had really liked the imagery,

and it just sort of played, in the Bible, I think actually the angels are all male, but it was sort of our take on angels, sort of this battle, you know, battle warrior, female battle warrior angel. So for a long, long time, like I said, with a few rare exceptions, and later on we'll get to some angels that are actually male,

but for a long time our angels were female, solely female. So we make Moli's spirit in... Oh, the other thing you'll notice, by the way, is they definitely have some sense of aggression and protection. As you start making the angels, you'll see that angels kind of... They're battle angels, so they fight. And also, you're starting to see that they have some protection abilities, like protection from black.

So Moli's spirit is Mirage, and then Visions has Archangel, which is five white flying, five five, and it doesn't tap to attack, it's Vigilance. So that's just sort of a bigger Sarah Angel. So, now you can start to see, this is where

we're starting to say, oh, a white angel is a thing. Ice Age has a white angel, Mirage has're starting to say, oh, a white angel is a thing. Ice Age has a white angel. Mirage has a white angel. Visions has a white angel. Tempest's coming up. We'll have a white angel. I'll get to that in a second.

But we're starting to see, like, okay, it took a couple years. Angel became White's iconic pretty fast. But actually, it's funny when you go back and look at it, it really takes years before the second mono white angel even appears so it took a little bit of time I mean Sarah Angel was very very popular it saw a lot of play and you clearly could see its influence in stuff that's coming but it did take a little

while to form so in Vision, Vision also has guiding spirit one, 1 white, blue, 1, 2 flying, the top card of the target player's graveyard is a creature card, put that card on top of that player's library, there's a little bit of a flavor of reanimation going on with Angels over

time we, early early Magic, black and white both did straight reanimation and with time, we started having white do more small reanimation, it occasionally time, we started having white do more small reanimation. It occasionally can reanimate bigger things. But most of the time now, black reanimates anything and white reanimates smaller things. Then in Portal, we see Starlit Angel, 3xWhite, 3x4 flying creature.

Okay, then we get to Tempest. So Tempest has Avenging Angel. So Avenging Angel is 3xWhite, 3x3 flying. So Avenging Angel is three white white, three three flying. If Avenging Angel is put into any graveyard from play, you may put Avenging Angel on top of its owner's library. Okay, so there's an angel that is a battle angel

that also kind of protects itself. There's Angelic Protector in Tempest. If Angelic Flying, 3w22 Flying, if Angelic Protector is a target of a spell Angelic Flying, 3w, 2, 2 Flying. If Angelic Protector is a target of a spell or ability, it gets plus 3 plus opal at the end of turn. So it can protect itself, especially from red direct damage spells.

And then we get Selenia, Dark Angel. So Selenia, 3 white, black, 3, 3. So at the time it was summon Legend, because creature types weren't one creature type, and Legend was still a creature type. But in her text, it said flying, Selenia Dark Angel counts as an angel, so that's how we made

her an angel back then. And then pay two life, return Selenia to its owner's hand. So Selenia is from the Weatherlight saga. So what happened was, when Michael, Ryan, and I were trying to make the cast of characters, we had a list of things we wanted to do, and one of the things we wanted to do was make an angel that was a character, but it didn't end up making sense on the boat. So we ended up in character, the character of

Crovax. One of the storylines was he had this angel that was part of a cursed item and that he could summon the angel and the angel would serve him. And he fell in love with the angel. And then he let the angel go. And as soon as he let the angel go, she left. She fled. And part of the reason that he goes on the journey

is he wants to find Selenia. Because part of the curse is, it sort of makes him obsessed with Selenia. And in fact, Selenia will be the cause that curses him, where the curse is finalized, and Krovac becomes a vampire. But anyway, we wanted to make Selenia will be the cause that curses him, or the curses finalize, and Krovac becomes a vampire. But anyway, we wanted to make Selenia, we liked the idea that she was an angel, so we made her white, but she was kind of an evil character.

You know, had definitely some nefarious means, pretty selfish in some ways, so we made her white-black. Selenia is the first legendary angel. Selenia is the first legendary angel. Well, Gabriel Angelfire technically is the first, but it wasn't... I mean, while it was angel in flavor, the first one that, as we published it, was an angel, like I said. It says, counts as an angel,

which is the weird way we had it counted as an angel back in the day. But anyway, Selenia is the first sort of... We designed it to be and printed as a legendary angel. So what happens at this point, we've now started to establish angels are a pretty iconic thing. Like I said, if you look at all the large sets, Ice Age, Mirage, Tempest, that's, you know, three years of sets. The large set comes out, and there's an angel there. And even some smaller sets, like Visions and stuff, have their angel in them.

So we really are starting to establish what's going on. Okay, next we get Stronghold, Warrior Angel. Four white, white for a 3-4 Flying Angel. For each one damage Warrior Angel deals, gain one life. Okay, so you start to see Lifelink show up here. So Lifelink, the first card, well, there's a black creature in Arabian Nights that had ridden out, but kind of like Lifelink, the first card, well, there was a black creature in Arabian Nights that had it written out, but kind of like Lifelink. And then there was a card called Spirit Link in Legends that had a similar ability to Lifelink.

But anyway, we like the idea, this is us starting to tie the idea of maybe angels to life. You'll see a lot of, One of the things that we... Because white... Whenever you have a creature that you're doing a lot of, you want to give some identity to it mechanically, but give yourself some space. So angels can be warriors, so they can be good at fighting.

They tend to fly almost always. They can be protective. They can protect you. They can protect your things. They can protect themselves. And also we've tied them a bit to life gain. So you see like Life Link or Life Gain or things that care about life start to show up.

So next in Portal, this must be Second Age, Angel of Fury, Angel of Mercy. So four white, white, four, three, five flying angel. If Angel of Fury is put into your graveyard from play, you may choose to shuffle Angel of Fury into your library.

In Angel of Mercy, four and white flying. When Angel of Mercy comes into play from your hand, you gain three life. Angel of Mercy is one of those cards, I think we've reprinted it quite a bit. Yes, we have. So, it started in Portal Second Age, but it started in 1999, Invasion, 8th Edition, 9th Edition, 10th Edition.

It ended up being a kind of nice, clean, simple, cool angel. The idea that it comes and it kind of heals you, the player, by giving you life. Okay. So then we get to Urza's Saga.

Okay, so probably the most famous one for Urza's Saga is Herald of Assara. Two white white for a 3-4 flying Echo. Attacking does not cause Herald of Azsara to attack. So it's got flying vigilance with Echo. Now the weirder thing here is kind of funny. It's slightly

cheaper than Sarah Angel. Although, so essentially it's a 3-4 Sarah Angel. Sarah Angel's 4-4. But for one less mana. But, but you gotta pay the Echo. You have to pay the cost again. So, it's not a particularly strong creature, but it's definitely us.

You can see that we start modeling like, like this is a rare Angel. You start to see that one of the things we're doing is expecting for a red Angel, a rare Angel to show up. Now, Urza's side, interestingly,

also has a bunch of lower rarity angels. There's Angelic Page at common, one white, flying, one, one, target attacking creature gets plus one, plus one

to end of turn. And there's Voice of Grace and Voice of Law, which were two uncommons. They both were 3w2-2s that had protection from a color. Voice of Grace and Voice of Law, which were two uncommons. They both were 3W22s that had protection from a color. Voice of Grace had protection from black. Voice of Law had protection from red.

So that's white's enemies. So you see protection is a big thing that started showing up. I'm going to start skipping around here a little bit just because I don't need to talk about every angel. The next one of note is Radiant Archangel, which shows up in Urza's legacy. So Radiant is a legendary creature. Three white, white, summon legend, flying. Radiant Archangel counts as an angel, so she's a legendary angel. Attacking doesn't cause Radiant to tap, so she has vigilance. Radiant gets plus one, plus one for each other creature with flying in play.

So Radiant, in the story, Urza needed an energy source and he realizes that there's this artificial plane called Sarah's Realm that Sarah had made, where a lot of the Sarah Angels live,

or some of them, and he realizes that it's unstable and that it will eventually collapse. Not currently, but that. So he decides that he's going to prematurely collapse it so that he can get the energy out of it because he needs the energy to fight the Frexians or whatever. And Radian is the leader of the Angels

and is like, no, you can't do that. And he's like, no, I'm doing it. I'm just telling you to leave because I don't want anybody, you know, I don't want people to die. So get out of here. I'm blowing up, I'm collapsing the world. And Radian refused to leave.

So Radian, I think it's the second legendary angel that we, I mean, with the, Gabrielle Angel Fire exists. It is a legend. It is flavors an angel. We did not label it an angel until much, much later. So as far as we made an angel,

it's a legendary angel. We meant it to be an angel. It says on it, angel. Radiant was the second one. Radiant's more interesting, by the way. I mean, it's kind of funny that the first two angels we make that are legendary, both are, I mean, I wouldn't say,

both of them definitely have a darker side to them. I mean, Radiant was trying to save her home. I mean, there's some argument that Urza's the bad guy here, but she definitely is a little on the rough side. But once again, you'll see, it's funny, we really, angels are very influenced by Sarah Angel's. Vigilance becomes a common reoccurrence on angels. Flying is a given. And here, you can see what we're doing is we're trying to make the first angel

that is a build-around deck. And because there weren't enough angels yet, we didn't give it plus one plus one for other angels. We said flying, because there just weren't enough angels yet. And there weren't enough small angels to make the deck work. So by caring about flyers, it was the first kind of angel build-around deck

that gave you enough tools to make an angel deck, but secretly it kind of had to be an angel and white flyer deck. It doesn't even have to be mono-white. But, you know, it just gives you something to build around. Okay, so at this point, by the way, you'll notice that most sets have an angel in it. In Urza's Destiny, we make Voice of Duty and Voice of Reason, which are the protection from blue and protection

of green versions of the Voice of Grace and Voice of Law. So that's a... It's a cycle in that it's white getting protection from every other color. I think we eventually made a protection from white one, I think, but not during this year. Anyway,

so it becomes, angels become, at this point, angels are clearly, white's iconic, meaning that we make them in most sets. It's something players look forward to, you know, that just, we found that what an iconic is, is a creature that embodies the essence of what the color is.

And white is very about protection and healing and, you know, morality and being lawful. And the angels really came to be the epitome of sort of that, especially sort of on the morality end of things, of standing for what is right and fighting for the right cause and stuff.

Okay, next up, let's see, I'm going to zoom through it a little bit. We have Raya Dawbringer. That's another legendary creature. So we like making legendary angels. They're kind of fun. Raya Dawbringer is... What's that she's from?

She's from Invasion. So she is six white, white, white. So nine mana total, three of which is white. She's a 4-6 flying creature. She's a legendary angel. At the time, an angel legend, because legend wasn't yet a super type. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may return target creature cards from your

graveyard to play. So Rhea is, I think, still pretty popular. Like I said, we've shifted away from white just reanimating anything. We do it on rare occasion. But the idea of white sort of bringing things back is another flavor that we've played from time to time. So I will note

also in Invasion we have Crypt Angel. Four and a black, three three angel flying protection from white. When Crypt Angel comes into play, return target blue or red card from your graveyard to your hand. This is the second black angel we make. So clearly since then

there's a lot of white angels. There's some gold cards that are white and another color. And there's white and blue. There's white and black. But this is the first time we get a second mono-black angel happens in Invasion. And I think black is the second color that you most often see angels in. It's second by a big gap. But something about dark angels, there's nothing a lot

in Resonant of Dark Angels. By the way, I did forget something. In Prophecy, I forgot that we made Copperleaf Angel. This is the first artifact angel that's not a color, a colorless angel. It costs five mana, a colorless angel.

It costs five mana for two, two flying. Sacrifice X land, put X plus one, plus one counters on Copperleaf Angel. Prophecy had a land sacking theme. So what else next? So Desolation Angel shows up in

Apocalypse. So three black, black for five, four angel in Apocalypse. So, three black, black for five, four angel flying. It's got kicker white, white. When desolate angel comes into play, destroy all lands you control. If you pay the kicker cost, destroy all lands instead. So the idea is it's a five mana five, four that destroys all your lands.

But for seven mana, for three black, black, white, white, white, it becomes a five, four that destroys everybody your lands. But for seven mana, for three, black, black, white, white, white, it becomes a 5-4 that destroys everybody's lands. Okay, next up, a very popular angel, Lightning Angel, also from Apocalypse. So it is one red, white, blue. So this is the first three-color angel. First three-color angel and first legendary three-color angel. So it's a 3-4, Flying Haste.

Attacking doesn't cause Lightning... Oh, sorry, Vigilance. It's got Flying Haste and Vigilance. You know, by the way So it's a 3-4, flying haste, attacking doesn't cause lightning, vigilance. It's got flying haste and vigilance. You know, by the way, it's red, white, and blue. Red is the color of haste, white is the color of vigilance, and blue was the main color of flying. I understand that white also has some flyers. But anyway, the idea is there's three abilities, and each ability can tie to one of the

colors. It's not as clean as possible because flying definitely overlaps white and blue quite a bit. Next, we have a wayward angel wayward angel was in odyssey four white whites six men in total, two of which is white four four flyer vigilance

threshold, wayward angel gets plus three plus three and is black, has trample and has at the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature so you can see us messing around with Angel gets plus three plus three and is black, has trample, and has at the beginning of your upkeep sacrificed a creature. So you can see us messing around with threshold will be used to be transformational. And so threshold meant that you have seven or more cards in your graveyard. And so the idea was this was an angel that falls and becomes a dark angel. And so you definitely see some of that.

Okay, the next angel of note is a Chroma Angel of Wrath. So this is from Onslaught. Oh, no, no. I think it's actually... Did she show up in Legions? She showed up in Legions. The middle set. Legions is the all-creature set. So a Chroma Angel of Wrath. Five white, white, white. So eight mana total. Three missions.

It's white. Six, six. Flying. First strike. Trample. Haste. V, vigilance, protection from black, protection from red. Vigilance was, it was written out of the time, for those who care. So what happened was, we went through a big fight on Akroma. In the story, she is, the antagonist, Ixador, makes, dreams her up. And she has a giant fight against Phage. And the idea is

Phage kills anything she touches. Jamal, not Jamal, Kamal. Kamal sifts her Jessica, gets turned into Phage. Anyway, there's a giant fight. They end up getting merged together. But anyway, the idea of Akroma was that she couldn't die because she didn't really exist. She didn't live.

So if she got killed, she can get reborn. So I fought really hard for her to have a completely different ability and play into the story because I loved the idea of the woman with the deadly touch and the woman that can't be killed. You know, the angel that can't be killed. But I lost that fight. We ended up making

what we call a kitchen sink card, which has lots and lots of abilities. It's the first time up making what we call a kitchen sink card, which has lots and lots of abilities. It's the first time we had made this kind of kitchen sink card, and it was crazy popular. We actually did a survey at one point where we had 64 of the top legendary creatures fight off against each other in a head-to-head. Every day, people would vote.

And anyway, the winner was a Chroma. So people liked a Chroma. Okay, next up. Platinum Angel. So this is Mirrodin. So Platinum Angel is an artifact. Our second artifact angel. 744, artifact creature angel flying. You can't lose the game and your opponent

can't win the game. So the story of this card is we commissioned the art before we knew what the card was going to do. We said, oh, we're on metal world. You know what? It'd be awesome. What's more iconic?

Let's make an angel and make a metal angel. So we loved the idea. We commissioned the art. We had no idea what we were going to do with it when we commissioned the art. But we're like, hey, we'll figure it out. And then we came up with this idea of can't lose the game, and it seemed very splashy and very sexy, and so that became the Platinum Angel. Next up, Razia.

So Razia is from Razio Boris Archangel, 4 red, red, white, white, 6, 3, legendary creature, angel, flying, vigilance, haste, tap. The next 3 damage to be dealt to target creature you control this turn is dealt to another target creature instead. So she redirects damage. So when we made Ravnica, one of the things we wanted to do

is make sure that the guilds had some definition to them. And so what we said is, well, if every guild has access to all the creatures, it'll feel very samey. So we said, okay, instead of every white guild has access to all the creatures, it'll feel very samey. So we said, okay, instead of every white guild having access to angels, what if we limit it? So we limited it to two.

We said the Boros could have angels, and we said the Orzhov could have angels. That sort of made sense. It felt like angels are kind of like these warriors. Well, let's give it to the warrior race, the Boros. And angels have this sort of dark side. Well, let's give them to the Orzhov that has that sort of dark side. Well, let's give them to the Orzhov that has that sort of dark side. So

Razia was made and then in what was the middle set? Yeah, in Guild Pact. In Guild Pact we made Angel Despair. Three white, white, black, black, five, five, flying. When Angel Despair comes into play, destroy target permanent.

This is also a pretty popular card. But you can see, we sort of make Razia and Angel Despair comes into play. Destroy target permanent. This is also a pretty popular card. But you can see, we sort of make Razia and the Angel of Despair of really cementing that these two that these are the two guilds that you can see angels in on Ravnica. Okay, next up. Sarah Avenger. So this is

in Time Spiral. White, white, 3, 3. You can't play Sarah Avenger during your first, in Time Spiral. White White 3-3. You can't play Sarah Avenger during your first, second, or third turns of the game. Flying Vigilance. So one of the themes of Time Spiral was time. So we like the idea that this creature was limited by time. It was very cheap,

but you couldn't play it early. And so, anyway, I like this design. This one didn't end up seeing as much play as I was hoping it would. It's also on play, but... Okay, next. Malak of the Dawn.

Two white-white for a 2-4 Flying Angel. White, white, white regenerate Malak of the Dawn. This is a weird card. I talked about this in my color shifting. So this is

the card Ghost Ship. Shifted over into white in Planar Chaos. And white was the color regeneration in Planar Chaos. In that color pie. So it was just a very weird, quirky card. Okay. Also showing up in Planar Chaos was a Chroma. Angel of Fury.

So we took some famous legendary creatures and did what-ifs with them. So this is, well, Angel of Wrath already was a weird white card that had Wrath in it, which is like anger, which is more of a red thing.

So what if she got a little angrier? So five red, red, red, six, six, legendary creature, angel, a Chroma Angel of Fury, can't be countered, flying trample, protection from white, protection from blue, protects from blue.

It's got Fire Breathing, so it gets red mana for plus one, plus one, end of turn. And it's got Morph for three red, red, red. So the idea is we wanted to make a red version of it. We made it cost the same, so it's five and three colored mana, the red, red, and white. And then we sort of lined it up and like, okay, it has certain abilities. It had like Flying and trample. Where's the

Yeah, it's flying and trample. But then we it had protection from colors, but it's the opposite of it color rather than protection. The white one had protection from black and red. So this is white and blue because opposite of red. But anyway, we also

we gave it morph. So even though it had an eight mana cost, you could actually get a little bit cheaper. So, but the reason that we made the Akroma, by the way, was when Akroma won the head-to-head thing we had done, we decided that what we

were going to do was somehow have Akroma show up all through Time Spiral. So Akroma was on the bonus sheet, the time-shifted sheet in Time Spiral, and also a version of her was made in Planner Chaos and the memorial to her

that granted all the abilities of the original Akroma to all your creatures was made in Future Sight. So I thought that was pretty cool. Okay, well, I'm almost to my desk here. So let's see. Let me look real quickly to see if any other angels that I want to... Oh, Baneslayer

Angel. Okay, Baneslayer seems a good place to wrap up for now of my angels. Maybe I'll see what people think of this. Maybe I'll do Angels Part 2 if people want to hear more about Angels. But anyway, I'm going to end with Baneflare Angel. So Baneflare Angel,

three white, white, five, five, flying first strike lifelink, protection from demons and from dragons. It was in M10, 2010, Magic 2010. This was a set that Aaron kind of redefined what it meant to be a core set. We started having new cards for the first time in a core set.

And so they made this Baneslayer Angel. Now, originally, it was Flying... I think it was Flying Vigilance Lifelink, Protection from Demons, Protection from Dragons, 3-way. And we said, oh, come on, Ser Angel's in the set. Don't make it strictly better than Ser Angel. So we convinced them to change it from, I think, from Vigilance to First Strike, just to make it strictly better than Sarah Angel. So we convinced them to change it from I think from Vigilance

to First Strike, just to make it a little bit different. I mean, look, the card's better than Sarah. But this was us really kind of pushing. This is definitely one of the most pushed of our angels. But the idea was that we were really Magic 2010 was trying to make very, like,

let's kind of reimagine what it was to be the core set. Wanted to make some bold new cards. And anyway, this was fun. I really love protection from demons and dragons. It's what we call trinket text, and then it's more flavor than functional, but there have definitely been environments

where it really did matter, that had protection from, usually dragons is the one that mattered more, but it is the kind of thing that, it doesn't often matter, it's really flavorful, but every once in a while it comes up, and it matters, and it's pretty cool.

So anyway, that is me talking about angels. So if you guys liked this, maybe I can do another angels. I only got up through Magic 2010, so there's some angels left to talk about. But anyway, I can see my desk.

So we all know what that means. This is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. So anyway, guys, I'm glad you joined me for my trip through angels today.

But it's time for me to go, so I will see you next time. Bye-bye.